Subject groups/Research projects

Departments and Institutes

Research Interests

The focus of my research can broadly be described as `human landscapes', the relations, both short- and long-term, between people and environment in the past: How have past human societies and the environments they inhabited constructed and transformed each other? And can understanding these past relationships help inform the present and the future? It is an interest that I have pursued in different ecologies (temperate, semi-arid, arid, rainforest) and with societies at different levels of complexity from the emergence of our species to Roman farmers and, currently in Borneo, present-day rainforest farmers and foragers. The transitions to farming (the `agricultural revolution in prehistory') have been a particular focus for many years, but more recently my interests have moved backwards in time to the origins of modern human behaviour and the adaptations (from environmental to cognitive) made by our species in their migrations out of Africa.

Research Supervision

Current Students:

Kate Connell

Shawn O'Donnell

Elizabeth Raddatz

Francesco Sponza

Past Students:

Lindsay Lloyd-Smith

Andrew McLaren

Andrea Dolfini

Franca Louise Cole

Other Professional Activities

Current Research Projects:

The Cultured Rainforest, Sarawak, Borneo

Pleistocene and early Holocene settlement of North Africa, Haua Fteah excavations, Lybia

Warmuth V., Eriksson A., Barker G., Bower M.A., Hanks B.K., Li S., Lomitashvili D., Ochir-Goryaeva M., Sizonov G.V., Soyonov V. and Manica A. (2013). Erratum: Reply to Forster et al.: Quantifying demic movement and local recruitment in the spread of horse domestication (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2012) 109 (E3149) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1212046109). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1301584110.

Barker G., Antoniadou A., Barton H., Farr L.R. and White K. (2009). The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2009: The third season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007-2008 fieldwork. Libyan Studies, 40, 55-94.

Rabett R.J., Piper P. and Barker G. (2006). Bones from Hell: Preliminary results of new work on the Harrisson faunal assemblage from the deepest part of the Niah Cave, Sarawak. E.A. Bacus, I.C. Glover and V.C. Piggott (eds.), Uncovering Southeast Asia’s Past: Selected Papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Assocication for Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Singapore: National University Press. 46-59.

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